Merchants and other store owners have point of sale (“POS”) terminals and POS systems that can accept check or payment card payments from consumers for goods and services. Merchants typically contract with an acquirer processor to process payment transactions originating from the merchant's POS terminals and POS systems. Acquirer processors process the payment transactions and settle funds between consumer's and merchant's accounts. Online vendors accept bank and payment card payments from Internet customers and can process those payments using services provided by payment network providers such as acquirer processors. Utilities, service providers, and other online parties similarly accept bank transfers and accept payments from payment card using similar services provided by payment network providers.
Each merchant, online vendor, utility, or service provider can be required to certify their respective payment platforms with the payment network provider. For example, a merchant can be required to use only certified POS terminals or POS systems on the acquirer processor's payment processing network. The acquirer processor generally requires the developer of the POS terminal or POS system to perform a set of certification tests with a certification system. The certification tests verify that the merchant's payment platforms will be properly configured to send the required transaction data in the correct format to the acquirer processor. Once certified, the acquirer processor grants access to the acquirer processor's payment processing network to the certified payment platforms.
Certification testing can involve significant time and expense for all parties involved, even when a payment platform passes a certification test on the first attempt. When errors are discovered during certification, a payment platform may need to be fixed and then go through the entire certification process again. When payment platforms are updated via software or firmware, for example in order to accept a new form of payment or add new features, those payment platforms again may need to be recertified. Certification therefore can be an iterative, time-consuming and expensive process. However, certification is an important step to ensure stability of production systems. If certification costs are high, parties may be hesitant to deploy new services on their payment platforms, thereby slowing the availability of novel features and programs to consumers. If parties roll out updates without first certifying their payment platforms, errors that would otherwise occur with a certification system during testing instead occur on an acquirer processor's production system.
It is undesirable to have errors occur on a production system for a number of reasons. Errors can result in purchase transactions being unexpectedly declined, transactions being allowed that should have been declined, accounts being undercharged which can require subsequent corrective actions, accounts being overcharged which can result in overdraft fees, and wrong accounts being charged or credited, among other possible negative outcomes. Negative experiences can not only alienate customers of the merchant, but can adversely impact the image of the payment platform provider or acquirer processor with the merchant and require costly multi-party support actions to correct. Additionally, errors can burden production systems that may be fully loaded or otherwise ill-equipped for handling and debugging errors.